Senior Subsea Acoustics Engineer

Ulysses • San Francisco, CA

3d

About The Position

Ulysses is seeking a Senior Acoustics Engineer to lead the development of their next generation of cost-effective, high-performance underwater sensing systems, designed for manufacturing scale. This role involves owning core acoustic payloads and algorithms (DVL, MBES, Side Scan Sonar, USBL, and adjacent modalities) and driving them from concept through production. The engineer will be responsible for creating robust, repeatable, and calibratable products suitable for high-volume manufacturing and global deployment. This is a senior, hands-on, full-stack role encompassing physics, signal processing, electronics, embedded software, mechanical integration, and production test. The position will lead the Ulysses acoustics team, setting technical direction for acoustic systems and collaborating with robotics, autonomy, and manufacturing teams to ensure systems are reliable in the ocean and economically viable at scale. The ideal candidate will possess deep domain expertise and the judgment to make critical architecture and design tradeoffs independently.

Requirements

• 8+ years of professional experience in underwater acoustics, sonar systems, or closely related signal processing disciplines.
• Track record of shipping acoustic products—or owning major subsystems of them—ideally in DVL, MBES, Side Scan, USBL, or closely related sonar systems.
• Deep expertise in DSP and estimation: time/frequency domain analysis, filtering, detection, beamforming, Doppler processing, and probabilistic performance metrics.
• Strong implementation skills in Python for R&D prototyping and C/C++ (or equivalent) for embedded/real-time deployment.
• Demonstrated ability to work across disciplines—comfortable bridging physics, electronics, firmware, and mechanical integration.
• Hands-on approach to testing: designing experiments, building rigs, running field trials, and debugging from raw waveforms to full system behavior.
• Experience leading technical direction on complex development programs and making architecture-level tradeoff decisions.
• Proven ability to develop working, deployed systems—not just theoretical models or paper studies.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with transducer design, array design, acoustic materials, packaging, and underwater connectors/sealing.
• Experience with production test automation, calibration pipelines, and quality systems (e.g., ISO 9001-style processes).
• Prior work on AUV/ROV/USV platforms and navigation stacks (INS aiding, time sync, data association, mission reliability).
• Experience designing for harsh environments: pressure, corrosion, vibration, temperature, EMC/EMI.
• Experience mentoring or technically leading a small team of engineers.

Responsibilities

• Lead acoustic product development end-to-end: architect systems, prototype quickly, validate performance, and drive designs into production.
• Lead a team to design, build, and test performative sonar systems across one or more of: DVL (bottom/water-track velocity, aiding INS), MBES (bathymetry, obstacle/terrain mapping), Side Scan Sonar (imaging/classification support), USBL (relative positioning/tracking, aiding navigation).
• Develop and own signal processing and estimation pipelines: waveform design, matched filtering, Doppler estimation, beamforming, multipath/false return rejection, uncertainty characterization, and sensor fusion interfaces.
• Lead the team through hardware/software stack design and development while owning parts yourself: transducer selection/design tradeoffs, analog front-end considerations, timing/synchronization, embedded compute constraints, interfaces (Ethernet, serial, CAN, PPS), firmware/drivers, and logging/observability.
• Drive scale-to-production: cost-down iterations, DFM/DFT, supplier selection, manufacturing documentation, calibration procedures, automated test fixtures, yield and reliability improvements.
• Lead real-world test campaigns: tank/bench characterization, environmental testing, field deployments, sea trials, and structured performance reporting.
• Mentor junior engineers and set technical standards for the acoustics discipline within the team.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed